One of the greatest challenges we face when we finally arrive in the body is feeling we are undeserving.
Upon reflection, it’s not hard to see why. We see how we have acted in defiance of the body and of nature, how we have held ourselves above it, how we have ignored and dismissed its yearnings and truths.
We have treated it as a nuisance. We sensed, accurately, that surrender to the body would tear us from our daily toil and eternal earning mentality.
But to stop compensating life for our existence? We certainly did not want to feel we owed a sense of gratitude, as we haven’t felt our life belonged to us in the first place.
And yet, we are suddenly faced with a truth: We have been given a gift we can never repay. With rotting coffers, we have demanded more when we scarcely knew what to do with what we had.
We can suddenly see ourselves with our concealed abundance, shivering in desperation, starving, and demanding more. We look ridiculous.
And then, Eros, recognizing we have no idea what we are doing, wants to offer us even more.
It brings us benevolent aid in the form of guides and companions who view us entirely without judgment and who, having been in our shoes, can relate to us and have a strange surplus of compassion—a compassion that makes our already bloated consciousness gag at the thought of receiving it.
Recoiling in shame, our consciousness wants to strip down, deprive, restrict, and self-punish until it empties out completely.
And if that worked to restore us, Eros would be all for it. Unfortunately, it just swings the pendulum of stuffed and starving back in the opposite direction.
The only thing that actually reaches us is the metabolizing force of love, compassion, and understanding…and sometimes a few heavy strokes of guidance.